Allegiance of Honor

by Nalini Singh

  Kaleb raised his eyebrows. “All such situations will do is give them endless opportunities to ignore each other. That is, if they don’t try to kill one another.”

  “Don’t be so cynical.” Scowling, Sahara tugged on the ends of the towel to hold him in place. “You know you believe in love.”

  “I believe in loving you.” Always he would love her.

  She rose on tiptoe. “I love you back more.”

  “Impossible.” She was his life, his heart’s blood.

  Hands on her hips, he lifted her into his kiss. When she hooked her legs around him, it was instinct to move forward, press her back against the wall. Then his eyes landed on the wall that was his destination.

  He stopped.

  Following his gaze, Sahara smiled. “Our wall of memories is filling up.”

  “Yes.” The photograph that had stopped him in his tracks was from a time when he’d teleported into DarkRiver territory to pick her up from Faith’s and discovered Judd had come by to say hello.

  Kaleb hadn’t seen Sahara take the photograph, but it was of him and Judd in conversation, the rogue Arrow smiling faintly while Kaleb stood with his hands in the pockets of his suit pants, his head slightly angled in a listening position and his shoulders relaxed under the plain white of a long-sleeved business shirt.

  He looked . . . open, unshielded against a man who was lethal should he want to be. But then, Judd was also the man who’d fought for Kaleb when even Kaleb didn’t believe in his ability to hold firm against the darkness.

  Some friendships were set in stone.

  “I love that photo.” Hugging her arms around his neck, Sahara kissed his jaw. “The backdrop of firs, your body language and his. It’s obvious you’re friends. Good friends.”

  “We need one with Xavier, too.” The priest was the only other man Kaleb considered a friend. “When he’s back.” Father Xavier Perez was currently in a remote and mountainous part of South America searching for his Nina.

  Kaleb and Judd had both offered to teleport him to the woman they believed to be the lover for whom he searched, but Xavier had made it clear he needed to fight this battle himself. In the interim, Kaleb had discovered it was difficult to practice patience while one of his closest friends walked alone in the wilderness. It made him understand why Judd and Xavier had been so concerned about him in the years before he broke Sahara free from her prison.

  “You walk in aloneness, my friend,” Xavier had said one day not long into their acquaintance, the other man’s expression holding a peace that came from deep within the soul.

  Kaleb could still remember his response. “There is strength in being without vulnerability.” A false response even then, because he carried in his heart a vulnerability he would never give up, for to give it up would mean giving up Sahara.

  She tried to lower her legs now, laughed and stayed in position when he refused to release her. “We’ll get a photo with Xavier as soon as he returns with Nina.”

  Kaleb went silent.

  “What is it? You’re thinking deep thoughts.” Dark blue eyes holding his as she reached up to brush strands of hair off his forehead, the charms on her bracelet catching the light.

  “I’m wondering how so many people became entwined in my life.” He was used to thinking of himself as a lone wolf but for Sahara. Only he had Judd and Xavier, too.

  And then there was Leon.

  Sahara’s father continued to call him “son,” continued to treat him with an absentminded paternal affection that Kaleb didn’t know how to process. He’d been beaten and tormented by the only father figure he knew. He’d always understood that Leon was different, that the man loved his daughter, but Kaleb had never expected that paternal warmth to be turned in his direction.

  “These people are in your life because you made the choice to be their friend.” Sahara rubbed her nose gently against his. “You chose not to betray their loyalty even when it might have been expedient, and to stand with them when they needed your help.”

  “You make me sound good.” He wasn’t, she knew that.

  “You know how to be loyal, Kaleb.” A whisper, her breath kissing his lips. “How to love.”

  He had no rebuttal. He’d been hers since the moment they met. “Because of you.”

  “Being loved by you . . .” Her eyes shone like jewels as the psychic bond between them blazed with that glorious light that touched even the twisted heart of him.

  He loved, was loved.

  Kaleb needed nothing else.

  “You still occasionally covet world domination, though,” Sahara said with a grin after catching the edge of his thoughts.

  “A small thing.”

  Shoulders shaking, she squeezed her legs around him. “If you can love that deeply, that passionately, why not humans and Psy?”

  “A hundred years of hatred and distrust and arrogance.”

  Sahara waved a hand. “A small thing.”

  And though they were discussing the possible and catastrophic end of the Psy race, Kaleb felt his lips curve. “Of course. You believe the heart will conquer all.”

  She pushed at his shoulders. “I’m going to have the last laugh, Kaleb Krychek, just you wait.” After which, she kissed him, the wrong thing to do if she wanted to condition him to change his opinion.

  But Sahara didn’t think that way. Neither did he. Not when he was with her.

  “Let’s shower,” she said against his lips. “We’re sticky from the exercise, and I’ve got to start plotting how to get humans and Psy to look at one another not as enemies, but as potential lovers.”

  Whatever their disagreements on racial politics, being naked with Sahara was one of Kaleb’s favorite things. He loved sliding his hands over her skin, loved having her mind linked to his while he caressed her in different ways until he knew exactly what gave her the greatest pleasure. Of course, she did the same to him.

  Kaleb didn’t mind. He was hers to do with as she wished.

  Tonight he pressed his hands to the tile above her head as she laughed and stole kisses and continued to argue with him as the water pounded down on his back. He met her arguments with his own even as he pressed more heavily into her, his rigid erection shoving impatiently against her abdomen. Shivering, she rubbed against him, and when she kissed him this time, her smile sank into him, her hand stroking up to curve over his nape.

  He loved the way she held him, so possessive and demanding.

  Kaleb. She closed her fingers over his stone-hard penis.

  His body jerked but it wasn’t in rejection. He was simply never ready for the jolt of pleasure that was Sahara’s touch. When am I going to be used to you?

  Maybe if we cause a few more earthquakes.

  I think the seismologists are confused enough as it is. He could control his violent telekinetic power during sex, but only by punching it deep into the earth. It had certain repercussions.

  Nibbling at his jaw, Sahara said, Want to stop?

  Never. Kaleb moved one hand down to fondle her breast, cupping the warm silken roundness, then running the pad of his thumb over the hard nub of her nipple. Moaning in the back of her throat, Sahara released him, nuzzled her way down his neck. “I need you.”

  Lifting her with his hands under her thighs, he slid his erection through her delicate folds before pushing deep into her. She was so tight around him, but they fit; they fit perfectly. Gasping at his entry, she wrapped her arms around his neck, her legs already wrapped around his hips. “I love how you feel inside me.”

  Kaleb shuddered at her words, undone.

  He rocked slowly into her, and when she tugged down his head and demanded a kiss, he opened his mouth over hers and they danced in love. Slow and gentle, skin sliding against skin and breaths mingling as the water ran down his back.

  The earthquake was inevitable.

&n
bsp; As was their solemn conversation after the shower, when they lay tangled in bed. All jokes aside, the PsyNet was in serious trouble. It wasn’t critical, not yet, so they had a little breathing room, but that room wouldn’t last forever. “You’re never going to be at risk,” he told Sahara. “If need be, I can haul the clean sections of the Net together, create a small but functional network.”

  Sahara rose up beside him on her elbow, her eyes troubled. “You made a promise.”

  One hand curving around her throat, he said, “I’ll keep it. I’ll fight to save the PsyNet and the Psy race.” For her, he’d save instead of kill. And for her, he’d build instead of destroy. “But I won’t flounder in a doomed network, and never will I leave you in danger.”

  Not even you, he telepathed, can force me to watch you die when I can stop it. He’d been made helpless to save her once. Never again.

  Furious emotion filled her eyes. “I would never do that,” she whispered, her voice raw. “I would never hurt you that way.”

  He realized he’d made her angry rather than desolate. “Then walk with me into this,” he demanded. “Tell me you won’t fight me if I ever make the call. Tell me we’ll do it together.”

  Her eyes held his own and he knew his gaze was obsidian, devoid of stars. “I trust you with every tiny particle of my being and every corner of my soul,” Sahara said. “If you ever say there’s no hope, that it’s time for the last throw of the dice, then I’ll be right there beside you.”

  Shifting his hold to grip her jaw, he kissed her hard. “Now that we’ve settled that, let’s figure out how to fix this so we never have to throw those particular dice.” Because while he knew he’d save her, Kaleb also knew the loss of millions of other lives would devastate his Sahara.

  To keep her whole, he’d have to ensure the PsyNet did not fall.

  PART 6

  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 bloo
d 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.