Allegiance of Honor

by Nalini Singh

  Watching his friend, Aden thought of the endless training sessions they’d done together at the orchard, of how hard Vasic had worked to regain his balance and fluidity in movement. Losing an arm changed everything about how a person moved, but Vasic had never complained. He’d simply learned to adapt.

  Because the man who had once wanted only to die now had multiple reasons to live.

  “You’re getting slow in your old age, Zen!”

  Vasic glanced up at Remi’s heckling and Aden saw the shadow that passed across his face at the reminder of the man whose name he bore—a name he’d chosen to bear. On its heels came determination. “Want to put a wager on it?”

  Remi snorted. “Do I look mentally challenged? Only an idiot would bet against a Tk, one-armed or not.”

  Laughter dawned in Vasic’s eyes before he returned to his careful yet strangely fluid climb. As Aden sat there under the light of the evening sun and watched his best friend take on what should’ve been an impossible challenge, while a new friend sat beside him, and Aden’s mate spoke with friends of her own, he felt a dizzying sense of possibility and hope.

  Ming LeBon might be stirring trouble, the Consortium was waiting in the shadows, and BlackSea’s vanished remained lost and alone, but today, this night, it was a dream an Arrow would’ve thought impossible even six months earlier.

  Chapter 35

  CHANCE PUT LUCAS with Devraj Santos again when Jamie sent in a note the next day confirming mission success, with details to follow. Lucas glanced at the message with grim satisfaction, then slid away his phone so he could start the car. He’d offered to drive Dev up to SnowDancer territory, where the leader of the Forgotten planned to check in with the children and families SnowDancer had given shelter.

  Since Lucas had business with Hawke, it was convenient for them both.

  It turned out Dev was thinking of pulling his people out of pack lands. “Not that you haven’t kept them safe and treated them well,” he said to Lucas, “but the kids are starting to need more and more specialized help as their abilities develop. And while Sascha and the others here have been incredible, I think they’d do better under the training programs we’ve been figuring out with the Arrows.”

  Lucas nodded. “Judd’s really the only one with the kind of skills to teach those of your young with dangerous new abilities, and he can’t handle them all.” Sienna was assisting, but her training differed from Judd’s and a lot of it wasn’t transferable.

  “There’s no question of moving William,” Dev clarified, referring to a boy born with the unusual telekinetic gift that made Judd so deadly and so extraordinary at the same time. “Judd can help him in ways no one else can, but the others? I’m going to talk them through the programs we’re developing, give them the choice.”

  “What about the reason you moved them here in the first place?”

  “We’ve been quietly buying up land in a remote part of New York State,” Dev replied. “It’s secure but large enough that no one will feel penned in. I got the idea from DarkRiver’s Yosemite territory, to be honest—though our area isn’t as large, it’s plenty big enough for humans and Forgotten.” The other man ran a hand through his hair. “I actually wanted to run something by you in terms of our security protocols.”

  Lucas listened, gave his opinion, then asked Dev if he’d had a chance to think about the dangerous disintegration of the PsyNet, an issue Sascha had brought up at dinner the previous night. While the Forgotten had no reason to love those in the PsyNet who had once hunted them, Dev and his people understood that the majority of Psy were ordinary people fighting to survive.

  The other man had offered to assist Sascha in any way he could.

  “I can’t figure it out.” Dev braced his arm on the door, his window down as they reached the foothills of the Sierras. “If the Es are awake and emotion is back in the Net, then it should be healing. The Forgotten didn’t do anything extraordinary when we defected.” His frown was in his voice. “We just stayed what the PsyNet was pre-Silence.”

  The two of them talked it through but hadn’t come up with anything new by the time Lucas brought the vehicle to a stop near the den.

  • • •

  TWENTY minutes later, as he stood waiting for Hawke just outside the White Zone, Dev having already met up with his liaison, Lucas made a note to ask Jon if the teen wanted to join the Forgotten’s new training program. If he did, DarkRiver wouldn’t send him alone; he’d have a pack escort, someone who was his friend as well as being tough enough to protect him.

  Not because Lucas didn’t trust Dev, but because Jon was a child of the pack.

  His phone beeped right then, with the promised report from Jamie. The senior soldier had written up his conclusions and sent the result over a secure line. Everything had gone according to plan—they’d invaded the target ship without setting off any alarms, then interrogated the captain.

  Jamie was certain the man had simply been another cog in the machine.

  All he knew was that he had to pick up live cargo at a certain time and place. That time and place would’ve lined up perfectly had the snatch on Naya been successful so I don’t think there’s any question Dorian zeroed in on the right ship. The captain was told he’d receive further instructions for care of the cargo once it was on its way but that he was to set aside a cabin for the time being, a cabin that had been stripped of all small items and was capable of being locked.

  He figured it was going to be an animal of some kind, an exotic pet “for some rich asshole.” He swears up and down that he had no idea he’d been hired to transport a kidnapped child. His exact words were: “I don’t do people. People have other people who look for them and some of those other people are fucking scary like you and your friends.”

  I tend to believe him.

  His record isn’t exactly squeaky clean but he’s never tried anything this ambitious or dangerous. He’s a smuggler, back and forth with low-risk goods most of the time, spiced with the occasional legal job.

  He was paid twenty-five grand upfront for the transport. That wasn’t enough to buy his loyalty when his life and livelihood were on the line. BlackSea did us a solid there, threatened to ban him from all the commercial waterways they control and they control a shitload. I didn’t have to show him my claws before he started spilling his guts.

  Lucas made a mental note to thank Miane, knew the alpha would say she was simply repaying DarkRiver for the introduction to Tanique Gray. Faith’s brother had brought BlackSea far closer to their vanished packmate than they would’ve been otherwise.

  Jamie’s report continued:

  My gut says we got everything out of the captain. He even gave up all his commercial and personal codes. I sent them through to Dorian and Bastien so they could dig through his transactions and transmissions and they haven’t found any evidence of greater involvement on his part. He was the unwitting mule hired to be the fall guy should Naya be found while he was crossing the ocean.

  Bastien’s tracking the source of the twenty-five-thousand-dollar payment. It was all anonymous of course. Pretty standard in a smuggler’s line of work so the captain had no reason to dig any deeper.

  I made the call to let him go, but we’ve bugged the hell out of all his systems. He doesn’t know, thinks he was released with a warning. He’s promised to share any new approaches from the individual who hired him, but for some strange reason, I don’t believe him.

  I’ve asked Bas to tag all his financials and Dorian is monitoring all his personal correspondence using various data backdoors. We’ll know if he’s approached again—I figured it was better to let this piece of bait sail away, see what he might attract, but if you think I should take him in, we can easily catch his ship.

  One more step in hunting down their prey, Lucas thought, one more step in the right direction. It was slow progress, but it was progress. Sending a message to Jam
ie confirming receipt of the information and backing the senior soldier’s decision to release the captain, Lucas told him to return to DarkRiver territory.

  The work on the water was done. Now it was up to Bastien to hack through the financial jungle that no doubt awaited.

  “Luc.” Hawke’s voice came just as he was sliding away his phone. “Sorry for the delay—was up in the higher elevations, hit a rockfall on the way out and had to navigate around.”

  Lucas shook the other alpha’s hand. “No problem.” Where before they’d both circled around each other, their animals ready to attack at any behavior that even hinted of a dominance challenge, their relationship had changed into something far different over time.

  Lucas had allowed Hawke to hold Naya.

  That said everything.

  “You want to walk to the waterfall while we talk?” Hawke asked, thrusting a hand through the hair of silver-gold that echoed his wolf’s pelt.

  At Lucas’s nod, the alpha fell in beside him, and they moved at a steady pace as they spoke about a number of matters related to the increasing interaction between the packs, as well as a construction project DarkRiver was heading, with SnowDancer a thirty-percent silent partner. They’d worked on several such projects by now, the wolves content to remain in the background, given DarkRiver’s expertise in the area.

  The two of them had just completed their discussion and returned to nearer the den when Dev joined them. After explaining to Hawke what he’d already told Lucas about the better training opportunities for Forgotten children back in New York, he said, “Excluding Will’s family, it looks like my people will be out of your hair within the next month.”

  Hawke nodded. “Everyone fit well into the pack, and adults and children both made friends. If they want to visit afterward, they’ll be welcome.”

  “I can tell you right now that they’ll be taking you up on the offer—leaving their new friends was the children’s biggest concern.” Dev’s eyes met Lucas’s and, all at once, those eyes didn’t quite look human.

  The irises remained brown but the flecks of color inside were suddenly glittering so bright they appeared like pieces of precious metals.

  “Dev, what the fuck is happening to your eyes?” Lucas asked before the other man could say whatever it was he’d been about to say.

  “Shit.” The leader of the Forgotten squeezed his eyes shut as he lifted one hand to grip his temples in a vice. “It comes and goes, and it doesn’t look like I can control it, though I’m trying the fuck hard.”

  Hawke folded his arms. “You developing cardinal eyes?”

  “Or something.” Scowling, Dev dropped his hand and opened his eyes.

  The flecks continued to glitter. Eerie, but oddly compelling at the same time.

  “I’m not the only one.” The other man blew out a breath. “Cruz’s eyes are changing the more he uses his ability, and so are those of a number of others. This”—he pointed to his own eyes—“it’s not what Cruz’s eyes are doing. None of the changes are the same and none of the changes are stable, but there is a definite change in the eyes of the majority of Forgotten with high-level abilities.”

  Lucas whistled, suddenly understanding why Dev was so pissed off. “It’ll put a marker on the backs of all your most gifted members.”

  A hard nod. “It’s like we’ve hit a default setting,” Dev said. “As if once an individual reaches a certain level of active psychic power, previously dormant genes turn on and start to fuck with their eyes.”

  “Maybe Dev’s people can modify the contacts we developed for Sienna and the others,” Hawke said to Lucas. “Has to be easier to hide these fluctuations than it was to hide cardinal eyes.”

  Dev looked immediately interested. “Seriously, any help you can offer, we’ll take,” he said before locking gazes with Lucas again. “I think Jon was the first to exhibit the change. When we spoke, he told me he doesn’t remember people commenting about his eyes until he turned eleven or so.”

  Since the remarkable violet shade of Jon’s eyes definitely invited comment, Lucas could find no fault with Dev’s theory. “Jon was on his own, forced to use whatever he had to survive.” Ethics made for cold comfort when you were a starving child.

  “No surprise his abilities woke faster as a result,” Dev agreed without hesitation.

  The response further strengthened Lucas’s liking for the Forgotten director. “We’ll forward you the information on how to produce the contacts.” They were highly specialized and had to be custom-made for the individual, but the Forgotten had the resources to do that. “You ready to head down?”

  Dev nodded and, saying good-bye to Hawke, the two of them were soon back in the car. They were a half hour out from the aerie where Dev, Katya, and Cruz were staying when Dev received a message on his phone that made him frown. “You know a lynx pack in Calgary?”

  Lucas thought immediately of Bastien’s mate, Kirby. Her grandparents’ pack, IceRock, was the only one in that immediate region. “Yeah. What’s the issue?”

  “There’s a small Forgotten population just off the pack’s eastern border. They’ve had a good if not close relationship with the pack to this point, but they’re getting nervous about vehicle movements late at night that seem to be going in and out of pack territory—black SUVs that look military grade to them, but they’re not trained.”

  The information didn’t fit with Lucas’s impression of IceRock. “I’ll ask, but as far as I know, the pack’s a peaceful one.” A family-centered group that was happy to be left alone, though it was cautiously following DarkRiver’s lead in making friendships with its neighbors.

  “Appreciate it.” Dev slipped away his phone. “My people tend to be jumpy, especially with children in the mix.”

  “Don’t blame them.” The Forgotten had lost a number of their young in horrific circumstances. “I’ll touch base with the lynx alpha soon as we get back.”

  “We’re leaving in two hours, so if you get any information after that, give me a call.”

  Letters to Nina

  From the private diaries of Father Xavier Perez

  October 19, 2075

  Nina,

  I’ve been working with my Psy friend whenever possible. He appears only rarely but we’ve found ways to stay in touch while he maintains his cover. In his absence, I use the welcome provided to me as a man of God to uncover information that helps us fight the evil that rules the Psy race.

  I’ve been surprised at how many of the Psy treat me with respect, despite their official disbelief in any plane of existence beyond this one. Again, it’s shown me that not all Psy are the same. They have their good and their bad, their lazy and their strong.

  I’m still angry at God, still full of rage, but there are glimmers of hope in the darkness. I don’t know if I’ll ever again be a man of absolute faith as I once was, but it seems my faith is too powerful to be killed even by horror.

  But one thing I know: I’ll never be fully at peace with God until the day I see you again . . . whether in this lifetime or the next.

  Xavier

  Chapter 36

  LUCAS WAS MEETING Sascha and Naya at Tamsyn and Nate’s, the other couple having invited them for dinner, but he stopped by his own aerie to make the call to the lynx alpha. Kiya Teague was around Lucas’s age but had become alpha far more recently; the pack’s previous alpha remained strong and healthy and respected though he was in his seventh decade of life.

  He’d had the support to keep on being alpha, but had decided to pass the baton to Kiya rather than see her move away from IceRock to establish her own pack. He remained available to her should she need his advice, the transition apparently seamless from what Lucas had heard. It was exactly how a healthy pack was supposed to function, how the switch had happened in DarkRiver until Lachlan died unexpectedly two years after stepping down; the loss had left Lucas without guidanc
e when he’d been a bare twenty-five years old.

  He’d never have been able to do it without his sentinels, particularly Nathan. The current most senior sentinel had been Lachlan’s youngest sentinel at the time; he’d provided a crucial link between Lucas and Lachlan’s older sentinels, men and women who were now all retired but who’d always been there for the young panther who’d had to rebuild a heartbroken pack.

  “Lucas,” Kiya said with a smile that lit up her pixyish face, her skin a tawny shade of brown and her eyes shaded by lashes that reminded Lucas of a doll’s.

  Petite Kiya Teague was the most cheerful alpha Lucas knew. It was mildly disconcerting. Lucas’s panther kept wanting to pat her on the head, but the human side of him knew never to try the condescending gesture. She’d probably rip off his arm because, bouncy personality aside, Kiya was a true alpha. Nowhere near as powerful as Lucas, but powerful enough to nurture a healthy pack and to hold his gaze.

  “What can I do yer for?” she asked, her hazel-brown eyes sparkling. “This about our Kirby?”

  Lips curving at the possessive emphasis on Kirby, Lucas shook his head. “Got a question for you from the neighbors on your eastern edge.”

  “The human settlement?” Kiya’s smile faded into a frown. “Why’re they going to you instead of coming to me?”

  Interesting that she didn’t seem to know her neighbors were Forgotten . . . but then the Forgotten didn’t exactly advertise their presence. Lucas sometimes forgot that he had far more information about them than the average alpha. “We have a mutual acquaintance,” he said, then grinned. “And they’re scared of you.”

  She drew up the entire five feet and one inch of her body. “You making fun of me, Lucas Hunter?”

  He held up his hands. “Wouldn’t dare. They really are worried—it’s to do with the late-night SUV movements in and out of your territory.”

  Kiya’s scowl faded at once. “Well, damn, I could’ve put their minds to rest in a heartbeat. I’ll do that today unless you have objections?”