Allegiance of Honor (Psy-Changeling #15) - Nalini Singh Page 0,10
his eye. “Jamie looks like he’s over his jetlag.” The senior soldier had flown home straight from the Solomon Islands, the distant country the last stop on his roaming of the world.
Nearly every cat roamed at some point in his or her life. Some for weeks, others for months, a rare few for years. It was part of their nature, part of what made them as feline as they were human. That time exploring the world helped them grow, helped them settle into their skin. Almost all returned home, however, their humanity tempering the more solitary inclinations of the leopard within.
In the thirteen years he’d been alpha, Lucas had lost only three of those who roamed. One in an accident that could’ve happened anywhere in the world, two others in much happier circumstances: they’d found their mates in different corners of the globe, decided to stay. In doing so, those two had connected DarkRiver to a pack in India and one in Botswana.
“I saw him this morning,” Clay replied. “He’s asked Nate to put him back on full active duty, and he’s back to his tech position at CTX.”
“Tech” was a broad shorthand term used by any number of specialists. In point of fact, Jamie was a highly qualified sound and holo-imaging specialist. First, though, he was a DarkRiver dominant and trusted senior soldier on the cusp of becoming a sentinel. Walking beside him had been a younger packmate who held incredible promise.
Lucas didn’t think it was chance that Kit was talking to Jamie.
“The Ming situation.” Clay bared his teeth at a double-parked car in front of them, before managing to swing around it. “Is it going to be majority rules?”
“Trinity has no official voting system.” One of those things that had been skipped over in the rush to create a united front against the Consortium. “Those of us Aden pulled in right at the start, we didn’t consider that we might want to keep people out of the Trinity network. Discussions were all about how to convince people to have faith in it.”
Lucas often wondered why the hell he’d volunteered to be the first point of contact for overall Trinity business for more than twenty-five packs and counting . . . and then he’d remember Naya. His and Sascha’s smart, funny cub who’d smacked big kisses on his face today before he left the aerie, and who collapsed into giggles when he tickled her. Half Psy, half changeling, all mischief—and as Aden’s intel had put into sharp focus today, a threat to those who abhorred change and wanted to freeze the world in time.
His gut tensed again, claws shoving at his skin. He’d permit no one to dim her light.
He also wanted her to grow up in a united world, not a divided one. Naya should never have to choose between the two sides of her heritage.
Lucas would fight to his last breath to make that happen.
“What’s the second problem?” Clay brought the car to a stop in front of an Embarcadero warehouse owned by DarkRiver. “You said two.”
“Let’s walk and talk,” Lucas said. “You might still make the site in time.”
Stepping out into the salt-laced air of the waterfront after putting up the passenger-side window, Lucas shut the door, then joined Clay as the other man headed in the direction where the boys were waiting. The sun rained down on them out of a cloudless blue sky, the winds light. Lucas could hear the faint buzz of voices in the distance, feel the vibration of the vehicles on the road, smell the saltwater taffy made fresh in a nearby boutique candy shop.
The sunshine made the panther within Lucas stretch out into a lazy sprawl; he had to resist the sudden temptation to shift and sun himself on the pier. That was not alpha behavior—on the other hand, it would be amusing to see people’s reaction to a black panther in their midst, especially if he walked into a butcher’s and pointed to a prime cut of meat.
Changeling cats being bigger than their wild counterparts, he’d make quite an impression.
“Gotta love this sun,” Clay said right then. “Makes me want to curl up and go boneless like that tabby over there.”
Grinning, Lucas told the sentinel what he’d been thinking. Clay’s smile was slow, deep. “Let’s do it for Halloween. Give the tourists a shock. We can chase the ones who are mean to the shopkeepers.”
Deeply amused in a way only a feline could be, Lucas skirted a tiny yapping