Allegiance of Honor (Psy-Changeling #15) - Nalini Singh Page 0,139

the other woman in Clara’s capacity as Manager of Haven because that was where Samuel Rain continued to live, but Ivy and Clara weren’t close enough for easy confidences—and Clara probably didn’t want this information going out over a comm network. It would have to be a personal visit.

Clara was a good person and Ivy believed she would share what Ivy needed to know once she understood the gravity of the situation in the PsyNet.

Vasic was home, could teleport her if the former J-Psy agreed to a meeting.

Ivy hesitated, loathe to disturb him.

She’d finally gotten him to rest; he’d worked nonstop since the day after they scattered Zie Zen’s ashes. She knew it was his method of coping but she’d had enough, had threatened to drug his food to knock him out if he didn’t listen to reason.

He’d smiled that slow, quiet smile that melted her. “You’d never do that, Ivy.”

“Ugh!” Glaring at him, she’d pointed to the bedroom. “Don’t make me turn to the dark side, Vasic Zen!”

Smile deepening, he’d teleported them both into bed and been asleep less than a minute after she stripped off his clothes; that stripping had taken some time since he kept teleporting off her own clothes and stealing kisses when she gasped in surprise.

Ivy had zero willpower against Vasic in a playful mood.

After he fell asleep, she’d stayed in his embrace until there was no chance he’d wake, then left him with a caress through his hair. Her intent had been to finish up her own work before snuggling back against the heat of his body for a lazy nap till Tavish returned home from school. She’d known one of the other telekinetic Arrows would teleport the boy to the orchard if Vasic was still asleep, Tavish having been strictly warned not to attempt the ’port himself.

He was too young, didn’t have the control.

That instruction might not have worked to stop him, but Vasic had quietly told the boy it was a matter of trust. “I’m not going to trap your mind so you can’t teleport,” he’d said. “I trust you to follow the rules.”

Tavish’s small face had filled with determination. “I won’t let you down.”

“I’m not waking him,” Ivy said to Rabbit now, her voice decisive. “If the PsyNet’s survived this long, it can survive another few hours while my Arrow rests.”

The only reason she’d wake him early was if Miane Levèque called. Vasic wouldn’t want Leila Savea to suffer any further if he had the power to help her. Despite her desire for Vasic to rest, Ivy hoped the BlackSea alpha would call, that there would be some news, especially of the SUV that had taken Leila from the compound Vasic had helped infiltrate, but when she slipped in to snuggle beside him, the comm was quiet.

As her powerful husband with his beautiful eyes of winter gray moved in his sleep to tug her tight against his body, Leila Savea remained among the vanished.

• • •

EIGHTEEN hours after the alert went out on the Alliance network, Miane got word that the SUV they were searching for had just been found, abandoned and torched in a gully. She’d made the wrong call. The Alliance clearly harbored one or more Consortium informants. That didn’t surprise her—money talked, regardless of race.

Rage still burned ice-cold inside her.

At those who had taken her people, at the traitors within BlackSea itself, and at herself, for making the wrong choice. She knew rationally that all she’d had were bad choices, but that didn’t matter. All that mattered was that this wrong call might’ve killed a vulnerable member of her pack who was counting on Miane to get it right.

“Emergency services found no body in the wreckage,” she reminded herself.

That truth provided a slender reed of hope, but the anger that lived in her wouldn’t ease until all her people were home and the ones who’d dared harm them had been brutally punished. There was strength in that anger, a cold-eyed and ruthless determination.

However, Miane knew no alpha could function as a true alpha if she ran on anger alone. That would poison her entire pack, leave it no place anyone wanted to be. Water-based changelings might not be like other changeling groups, might be other even amongst their own kind, but they were changeling and had a human side. As such, they were social enough to need a community on some level.

And even though the mammalian creatures in BlackSea often found it hard to understand those whose blood