Allegiance of Honor (Psy-Changeling #15) - Nalini Singh Page 0,170

Pelting away at light speed on bare feet, they called out to their parents and other elders in a language that wasn’t identical to his native tongue but that was close enough for him to understand.

Making his way to the edge of the village, he waited with screaming patience until an elder, his brown-skinned face gnarled with life, came to him, asked him his business.

“I’ve come to see Ani,” he said.

The elder’s wary welcome turned into a scowl. “Who are you to look for our Ani?”

“I’ve been searching for my Nina for many years,” he said softly. “Since the day the Psy destroyed our village. My friends tell me Ani is Nina.”

A snort. “If she is? She’s changed her name. Seems to me she wants to escape you.”

A dagger to the heart, those words made him stagger within. “Yes,” he accepted even as he bled. “But I need to hear that from her.” He met the elder’s dark eyes. “You have no need to fear me. All I want is a moment with her.”

Then he heard it: Nina’s laughter.

Head jerking up, he dropped his pack and walked past the elder without looking back. He was conscious of further scowls and grumbling around him, conscious of people following, but he didn’t care. He had to see her, had to beg her forgiveness.

Then there she was, dressed in a simple dress of pale yellow that swirled around her calves as she spun and spun with her hands locked to those of a child of about seven or eight. Other children danced around them, laughing and calling out for their turn.

“Ani! Ani! Me! I want to have a go!”

His heart, it was a massive drum whose beat thundered in his ears. He would’ve gone to his knees except that he wanted to see Nina’s eyes . . . and then the spin stopped and she turned laughingly toward him . . . and there was no recognition in her eyes.

She looked straight through him.

Xavier’s breath turned into jagged shards in his lungs before his mind caught up with his heart. Regardless of how angry she was with him, Nina would never be able to coldly ignore him. They’d been too much to each other for such distance.

Yet though her face was turned toward him, she didn’t meet his eyes.

Then he knew.

Walking toward her, he watched her head angle a little to the left, her awareness of his approach clear. “It’s Xavier,” he said when he was only a foot away from her.

Her lips parted in a whisper. “Xavier . . .” A hand rose, trembling.

He bent so she could touch her fingers to his face, so she could trace the lines of him. His beautiful Nina with her dark, dark eyes that were so much paler now, the hue watery blue. The color of someone undergoing regeneration after catastrophic damage to the eyes.

It took up to a year for the regeneration to work, and if Nina had been hurt during her jump into the water and remained up in the mountains all this time, the delay was understandable—regeneration was highly specialized and came with the attendant cost. Nina would’ve had to qualify for a grant or be given the treatment by a sympathetic clinic. Even then, if an attempt failed, she’d have had to wait the mandatory three years before a second attempt.

Today, those sightless eyes seemed to meet his as she shaped her fingers over his face. A tear rolled down her cheek. “Xavier,” she whispered again. “Xavier.”

He took her into his arms even though he knew he should wait, should be sure she wanted him to do so. But he couldn’t stand by while Nina cried. “Shh,” he whispered, the sound rough because his own throat was thick, his eyes hot. “Hush, my love.” He spoke in their shared dialect, a dialect that had only been spoken in a village long destroyed. “Nina, please don’t cry.”

But she continued to sob and then he realized he was crying, too, and they were holding on bruisingly tight to one another. He was vaguely aware of children being drawn away, of the adults leaving, until he was alone with his Nina and she wasn’t pushing him away but holding him close.

“. . . you were dead,” she said in a shaky voice. “They told me you were dead.” Again and again, she repeated that.

Stroking his hand over her mass of curling black hair, he kissed her temple, her cheek, the taste of hot salt