Allegiance of Honor (Psy-Changeling #15) - Nalini Singh Page 0,119

shindig.”

Aden and the leopard alpha were now side by side, having come closer as the rock face narrowed. Meeting Remi’s eyes, the color a clear topaz striated with light, he said, “I don’t think my Arrows, child or adult, are ready for such an unstructured event.”

The reason Ivy’s party had worked was because it had been small enough that she’d been able to have one-on-one contact with her guests, easing their way into the gathering. Any bigger and Arrows would start to withdraw behind an instinctive protective shielding. They’d bury their newfound emotions, fall back on decades-long training designed to turn them into remote, inhuman machines.

For to be an Arrow was to live within a strict set of rules.

Aden could soften that but he couldn’t erase it. Not when the people in his family were some of the deadliest on the planet—the rules and structure gave them a chance to have lives, and now, to have families. A telepath who wasn’t terrified of destroying a child’s mind with a simple slip made for a far more stable and happy parent, as did a telekinetic who didn’t have to worry he’d crush a child’s windpipe by being unaware of his strength.

Those mistakes simply did not happen inside the squad.

Silence had been an ugly construct, but it had taught the squad some good along with all the bad.

“Hmm.” Remi took a grip, then grinned. “Let’s talk about it at the top. See you there, Arrow.”

They began to climb with single-minded focus. As a changeling, Remi’s greater strength and flexibility gave him a natural advantage, but Aden had mapped out the entire climb in his head before he ever started. He didn’t need to pause or to rethink. As a result, they were evenly matched—and pulled themselves over the edge at the same time.

Laughing, Remi slipped out the bottle of water he’d carried strapped to his thigh. “Fuck, that was impressive for a man with no claws.”

Aden took a drink from his own bottle. “You didn’t use your claws.” Remi’s gloves were undamaged.

The other man put aside his water to tug them off. “Yeah, well, it’s only fun if it’s a fair fight. Now if you’d been like your friend, the Tk, it would’ve been no holds barred.”

“Vasic has only one arm.” Samuel Rain’s attempts at making Vasic a working prosthetic continued to fail—the last one in spectacular fashion. “The newest iteration of the prosthetic currently in play shorted out in a shower of sparks that set fire to Ivy’s new tablecloth.”

Aden had been at the orchard during the incident, so he knew firsthand that the empath had not been happy when she saw the damage. “She took a hammer to that particular prosthetic.” And if there had been a little too much force in her blows, well, even empaths needed outlets for grief.

Not cognizant of the sadness that had driven Ivy’s incensed reaction, Remi’s shoulders shook. “Vasic might have only one arm, but he’s a telekinetic. They move in a way that’s almost like a changeling but different. Can’t explain it.”

Aden didn’t need more of an explanation; he’d seen Vasic climb, knew exactly what Remi was trying to describe. “Yes, he’d beat both of us, even with only one arm.”

“Talk for yourself.” Remi’s tone was mock-insulted. “But the party thing—you need an excuse to give it structure. Anything good happen that you want to celebrate?” A pause. “I know your squad lost an elder recently. It’s even more important that you celebrate joy in the aftermath, that you show your Arrows that life, it’s got a lot of different faces.”

Aden thought of the children’s achievements, decided their confidence was too new and fragile yet to put even under a celebratory spotlight. Then he sensed Zaira at the back of his mind, happy in whatever she was doing, and knew. “We’ve had a number of bondings. Matings.” The squad had picked up and begun to use the changeling term, and they weren’t the only ones in the PsyNet.

“Ivy and Vasic had a wedding,” he continued, thinking back to an orchard dressed in sunshine and scented with spring blossoms. “As did Abbot and Jaya.” Held in the Maldives, the traditional Indian wedding had been a feast of color and sensation that made Aden doubt very much that the vast majority of Jaya’s family had ever truly been Silent. “The rest of us had no familial or cultural need to celebrate that way.”

“A mating or a long-term bonding is a big thing,” Remi countered. “It