Allegiance of Honor (Psy-Changeling #15) - Nalini Singh Page 0,156

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.”

“No.” 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