Allegiance of Honor (Psy-Changeling #15) - Nalini Singh Page 0,148

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 blood 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