by Nalini Singh
“That sounds like my mother.” Sascha twisted her lips. “She did also probably want the deal. Two birds, one stone.”
Lucas kissed her again, tender this time. Old hurts soothed by his love, Sascha glanced down at a bright mental touch. Yes, you’re a brave explorer, she sent to Naya.
Naya growled in pride before continuing her exploring.
“Let’s go see Nikita.” Lucas’s words had her attention snapping back to him. “Like I said, it’s a good time for Naya to meet her—while your mother’s defenses are down.”
Her heart thumped. “I don’t know if Vasic is free to do the teleport. I know he wasn’t at home when Ivy and I spoke.”
Lucas slid out his phone. “Let me give him a call.”
• • •
SEATED on her bed with work spread out around her, Nikita wasn’t expecting the telepathic page from Sophia. She began to respond . . . but then there was no need to ask why her aide was getting in touch with her.
It didn’t matter how well Sascha shielded herself; Nikita always knew when her child was close. Before she could do much more than gather and put her work on the bedside table and push off the blanket, Sascha was walking into the room with her own child in her arms.
Nikita saw Sophia pull the door shut behind Sascha and her baby and then, for the first time, the three current generations of Duncans were alone in a room together.
“Don’t get up, Mother.” Not waiting for an invitation, Sascha pulled the blanket back up over Nikita’s legs before taking a seat on the bed.
The girl child in her arms stared wide-eyed at Nikita.
“I told you it wasn’t safe.” Nikita was already calculating how to mitigate the danger.
“No one knows we’re here,” Sascha interrupted. “Vasic teleported us.”
An Arrow. But an Arrow who’d previously worked with Anthony and who was mated to an empath as softhearted as Sascha. Since Nikita kept herself out of Arrow business, and the leader of the Arrows, Aden Kai, didn’t appear to want to grab at power, Vasic had no reason to leak news of Nikita’s physical condition.
Muscles easing, she allowed herself to look at the green-eyed child with a wild tumble of silky black curls who Sascha had just placed on the bed, atop the blanket. Instead of clinging to her mother, the child continued to stare at Nikita.
“Your mate’s genes appear to have held sway.”
“Do you think so?” Sascha ran her hand over her baby’s back.
The child was clothed in a simple white sundress. She had tiny white sandals on her feet, the straps decorated with colorful designs.
“Look at the shape of her eyes.”
Nikita did, saw what she’d missed at first glance. The intense richness of the green might be from Lucas Hunter, but the tilt at the corners, the gentle upward slope, came from Sascha . . . from Nikita.
Now that she was searching, she found other small pieces of the Duncan line in this child who was both Psy and changeling. The fine facial bones. The skin tone that was a shade or two lighter than Sascha’s dark honey but still had enough brown in it to make it clear that Nadiya Hunter’s heritage was a complex one.
“She’ll be a striking adult.” Nikita could see the promise of an extraordinary beauty that spoke to a wide cross-section of the world. “Teamed with her mixed-race heritage, it’ll give her a useful advantage in business or politics.”
Sascha’s smile was affectionate, the hand she touched to Nadiya’s hair loving. “She’s going to grow up a good person. We’ll make sure of it.”
That, Nikita thought, was the difference between her and her daughter: Sascha thought in terms of goodness, Nikita in terms of advantages.
“Naya,” Sascha said in a gentle tone. “This is your grandmother.”
“Gram?” the child said with impressive enunciation for her age.
“Yes.” Sascha’s smile grew deeper. “Gram. She’s my mother.”
The baby stared at Nikita again for so long that Nikita felt the child was judging her, weighing up whether or not she was worth Nadiya Hunter’s time. Yes, there was definitely some of Nikita Duncan in this Psy-Changeling child. It would stand her in good stead in a harsh world. She’d be far more able to protect herself than her empathic mother . . . though Sascha had acted impressively against the mercenaries who’d attempted to take Nadiya.
Maybe Nikita’s child was finally growing claws of her own, now that she had a fragile new life to protect.
That was when the baby smiled, slapped its palms onto the blanket, and began to crawl up Nikita’s legs. Nikita went still as deep, deep inside her, awakened a memory. “You did this,” she found herself saying to the beautiful woman with cardinal eyes who’d once been her baby. “In the months after the birth, I was still . . . influenced by carrying an empathic child. I allowed you freedoms proscribed under Silence, allowed you to crawl where you wished when we were alone in my room.”
The day the technicians had informed her that the eight-month-old fetus in her womb showed signs of the E gene, she’d felt the stirrings of something even more primal than the maternal protectiveness that had awakened the day she found out she was pregnant. At that time, most mothers carrying empaths were never told the truth, were instead fed lies while the machinery behind the Council ensured those E-designation children were funneled into special early-conditioning classes designed to suffocate the E ability.
Nikita, however, had been the scion of a strong family group and a woman who showed significant promise in her own right. She’d been given the findings—and in the eyes of the technicians who’d informed her, she’d seen death for her child, seen judgment. They’d wanted her to consign Sascha to an institution where she’d be raised as a broken cardinal, no doubt after enough damage was done to her brain to make her pliable, thus ensuring a cardinal E remained in a PsyNet that needed those Es but had abused them for so long.
Her mentor at the time had wanted her to try for a more “perfect” child. A woman of her strength and potential, he’d said, shouldn’t be “saddled with the burden” of an E. Nikita hadn’t been able to do anything but keep Sascha then; she’d done so by flexing what power she had—and by convincing those more powerful than her, including her own mother, that a cardinal child, even one considered flawed, would be a symbol of Nikita’s strength.
She’d told them she would dispose of her child in an “accident” should Sascha prove problematic.
More than two decades on, Sascha lived and those technicians as well as Nikita’s once-mentor were long dead.
Nikita didn’t ever forgive those who threatened her family.
She hadn’t had to kill her mother—Reina Duncan had died a natural death, but even before that, she hadn’t interfered with Nikita’s raising of Sascha. Reina had signed what Nikita asked her to sign, requested regular updates on Sascha’s progress, and been content. Because, by then, everyone in the Duncan line knew it was Nikita who had the killer instinct, Nikita who’d take the family to serious power in the Net.
Nikita respected her mother for having understood that, for not getting in her way.
“I don’t remember,” Sascha whispered.
“Of course not. You were an infant.” Nadiya had crawled up to Nikita’s thighs.
Sascha reached out. “I’ll get her. I know your injuries—”
“It’s fine.” Well able to handle a toddler, even in her weakened state, Nikita sat her grandchild against her, one arm around Nadiya’s waist.
Content because she could see her mother, the child began to “talk.” One out of every seven words was possibly comprehensible. “She has excellent vocal skills for her age.”
“Yes, she’s a chatterbox,” Sascha said with a smile that exposed her heart.
Sascha’s gaze met Nikita’s when Nadiya fell silent, more interested in playing with the organizer Nikita had handed her. The ch
ild couldn’t do any damage, and the logic puzzle Nikita had pulled up for her to solve was all bright-colored blocks, a program still in Nikita’s archives from Sascha’s childhood.
“I’d like to remember.” There was a wistfulness to Sascha’s tone that once more betrayed the softness inside her that Nikita had spent a lifetime trying to toughen up. “I’d like to remember a time when you and I . . . were just us. No Silence. No rules.”
“It was never that way,” Nikita said curtly. “I was born in Silence.” And she’d been forged in a bloody battle for her child’s survival.
But her grandchild would grow up in freedom, and her daughter no longer had to worry that someone would try to exterminate her for simply being herself. It was a victory. “Here,” she said, and opened the telepathic channel that existed between mother and child, a channel no one else could access.
It didn’t surprise her in the least that it was wide open on Sascha’s end.
Foolish, emotional child.
Bringing up memories of the times she and Sascha had spent in Nikita’s bedroom when Sascha was still young enough that Nikita could enclose her in her own shields and hide Sascha’s distinctive mental signature, she sent those memories to her daughter.
Sascha gasped, one hand rising to her mouth as tears filled her eyes, the white pinpricks disappearing to leave her eyes pure obsidian . . . but no, there were midnight-blue depths in Sascha’s eyes now, as if the color that lived in an E’s head was changing the very nature of her gaze.
“Mother,” she whispered, the single word holding so much emotion that Nikita wondered how her daughter could bear it.
Then she remembered that Sascha was born to bear emotion.
Distressed by her mother’s emotional state, Nadiya whimpered and, abandoning her game, began to crawl toward Sascha. Nikita released her grandchild’s small, warm weight, watched as Sascha picked her up, nuzzled her, saying, “It’s okay, Naya. Mama’s okay.”
Kisses followed, more touches and soft words, while Nadiya patted her mother’s face as if to ensure there were no further signs of tears.
When Sascha put the child on the bed again, she crawled immediately back to Nikita. “Gram!”
“Yes, I’m your grandmother.” Nikita allowed herself to take one small fist in her own hand, feel the vital life of this child who was of her blood.
“Nadiya will be at risk for years to come,” she told her daughter. “It doesn’t matter how many mixed-race children are born, whether they’re Psy and human or Psy and changeling. She’s the first. A symbol for those who want a new world order—and a target for those who’d rather go back to the old.”
“I know.” The resolute strength in Sascha’s tone reminded Nikita that her softhearted child had annihilated an entire mercenary team. “We’ll make sure she’s protected but we won’t cage her. She has to have the freedom to live her own life.” She lifted her gaze from Nadiya to Nikita. “A parent can only do so much.”
Nikita saw forgiveness in those eyes of midnight, saw understanding, saw an emotion she knew was love. Breaking the connection because she had to stay strong, had to remain the ice-cold bitch no one dared cross, she allowed Nadiya to “bite” at her knuckles. The child wasn’t actually biting down, was more working her milk teeth gently over the bone, as if Nikita were a teething toy.
“I am . . . glad to meet my grandchild.”
It was the closest she could come to betraying the emotions that lived so deep inside her that nothing might ever reach them again. It was the closest she could come to telling her daughter that she would murder and torture and die for her. As she would for the child of her child. The world might think she’d rejected Sascha, but Nikita had always played a chess game a hundred moves ahead.
“I’m happy she got to meet you, too.” Sascha smiled. “We’ll do this again.”
Nikita inclined her head. “I’m surprised your mate let you in here alone.” She knew Lucas Hunter was just outside the door, could feel his wild psychic energy.
“He says you’d liquefy the brains of anyone who threatened either me or Naya.”
The DarkRiver alpha had always been a dangerous opponent. “Perceptive.” She watched Nadiya wander off to the other side of the bed, saw Sascha restrain her instinctive protective urge in order to allow her child freedom to explore.
Then the child was no longer a child but a scatter of light . . . and a small panther cub was jumping off the bed. Nadiya turned to give her mother and grandmother a proudly satisfied look once she was on the floor.
Chapter 46
“CLEVER CHILD.” NIKITA was impressed the toddler had figured out that to get to the ground, she’d be better off in her other form. “I’ve never witnessed a shift at such close proximity.” Never been trusted with it.
“Extraordinary, isn’t it?” Sascha said as Nadiya began to run around the room, curiously exploring everything she could. “Naya, be good.”
A small growl, a mischievous look, but the cub eased up her pace.
“Did you intend for me to fall for Lucas?”
Nikita wasn’t expecting the question. That didn’t matter. Her self-conditioning was too ingrained. Her expression held. “No,” she said, and it was the truth. “I knew your shields against emotion were failing and that you needed a way out. I also knew Psy had left the Net in the past to join changeling packs. It was meant to be a chance for you to find an exit route.” Had Sascha not succeeded, Nikita’s backup plan had involved a large amount of bloodshed.
“I would’ve rather you didn’t mate with Hunter,” she added. “As alpha, he’s too much in the public eye. The idea was for you to disappear into DarkRiver.” Instead, her daughter had become one of the key—and highly visible—members of the pack.
A soft laugh that made Nadiya utter what appeared to be a reciprocal growl. “You can’t control everything, Mother.”
“I learned that lesson when you came along.” Until that moment, Nikita had been a perfect inmate of Silence. Cold and hard and determined to rise to the top with pitiless grace. “Carrying a cardinal empath of your violent strength had an undocumented effect on me.” Which said something very interesting about all the women who’d come before Nikita—and about Nikita herself.
When Sascha opened her mouth as if to ask for details, Nikita shook her head. There were some things she’d never say aloud—never admit—even to her daughter. That was too slippery a slope, because the threat remained. In the world lived those who’d murder Sascha for being an E, for being the defector who’d brought a hidden revolution roaring into the light, and, unbeknownst to her, for being a poster child for happiness beyond Silence.
Not only that, to the fanatics, Sascha had committed a second and third transgression, both of which they deemed unforgivable: first, she had bonded with an “aggressive, unintelligent animal,” and second, she’d given birth to a child with “tainted” blood. Idiocy and prejudice, all of it, but prejudiced idiots could be dangerous.
Especially to a small, vulnerable child.
Nikita looked at the panther cub currently chewing on the edge of the bedspread, out of sight of her mother’s gaze. Nadiya’s eyes caught Nikita’s. She froze . . . then went back to her mischief when Nikita didn’t give her away. It was so easy to win the trust of children, but this child would never be in a position where that trust could get her killed.
Her alpha father and empath mother would never permit it.
Neither would her deadly grandmother.
Attention back on Sascha, she said, “They told me you were flawed.” Broken. Useless. “I told you the same because it was the only way to keep you safe.”
Sascha shook her head and for the first time today, Nikita heard anger color her daughter’s tone. “You could’ve found another way, a way that wasn’t so brutal, that didn’t make me question everything I knew about myself.”
“N
o.” Nikita would never second-guess the decisions that had kept her child alive. “You were too soft, Sascha. Always have been.” A harsh truth. “I had to get you to protect yourself, make sure you weren’t relying on me.” If that had meant making her empathic child fear and despise her, so be it. “You had to trust only yourself.”
“Is it what you believe? That I’m flawed?”
Nikita went to answer but decades of control kept her silent for long enough that Sascha turned away. She shoved past the control. “No,” she said. “If I had, I would’ve never put you in a position of responsibility.”
Looking back at her, Sascha smiled and it was a faint shadow of the expression. “I should’ve figured that out, shouldn’t I?”
“Yes.” One thing Nikita had always made clear—she didn’t suffer fools.
Laughter from her daughter this time, which made her granddaughter want to know what was going on. Jumping back onto the bed with a helping boost from her mother, Nadiya shifted with the confidence of a changeling at home in either skin and allowed herself to be swept into Sascha’s lap, making happy sounds when Sascha bent down to nuzzle her.
“There go another set of clothes.” Sascha pretended to growl and bite her baby. “I should start dressing you in flour sacks.”
Giggling, Nadiya kissed her mother’s face, unrepentant joy in her expression.
Nikita took a mental snapshot of the moment, to be filed away in her most private memories. She’d never take an actual snapshot, because if it existed, there existed the chance that someone could find it, use it against her by harming Sascha and Nadiya.
The lack of an actual photograph didn’t matter. Nikita’s mental acuity was extremely high. She’d remember, just like she remembered that Sascha had made the same sounds as a child. Sascha had also smelled much the same as Nadiya did when Sascha held her out and Nikita took her into her arms. Perhaps all babies had that innocent scent.
A bright, curious mind glanced across hers. Nikita nudged the child back without causing harm or distress, accompanying the psychic action with a nonvocal suggestion that Nadiya protect her mind. “She needs to stop reaching indiscriminately for others using telepathy,” Nikita told Sascha. “She’s old enough.”