Allegiance of Honor (Psy-Changeling #15) - Nalini Singh Page 0,46

important you are to me.”

“They also know I fight like a berserker.” Zaira’s smile was all teeth. “After the last assassin I took down, they’re going to have a serious recruiting problem looking for someone to hunt me.”

Aden thought of the recording he’d seen of Zaira with the point of a blade touching the assassin’s eye. She’d been all cold control on the surface while she fought a primal battle within. She’d won that battle, hadn’t given in to the rage that lived within her. And she’d made her point: Do not mess with an Arrow, especially this petite Arrow with her dark hair and midnight eyes and dangerous walk.

“Be careful anyway,” he said, his heart right there for her to see. “I need you.” Zaira was his, the only person in the entire world who belonged first to him.

“Aden.” Zaira touched her fingers to his lips, the ruby in her ring a silent representation of the flame that lived within her. “You stay safe, too. Or I’ll kill you.”

Aden felt laughter shake his shoulders. “Order heard and understood, Commander.”

“Good.” Sliding one hand to his nape, Zaira tugged him down. “Now kiss me again before Vasic returns.”

Letters to Nina

From the private diaries of Father Xavier Perez

February 14, 2074

Nina,

It’s been ten months now since the Psy came. Ten months since I watched you jump into the water. Ten months since I promised I’d be right behind you.

I wasn’t. I’m so sorry, Nina. I fought them, fought to keep you safe, to keep them from knowing where you’d gone. I was no coward, I promise you this. I’m not alive and writing this letter because I hid. I fought, Nina. I fought so hard.

They took us down one by one with telepathic blows. The bodies of those we loved fell on me. When I rose to consciousness, they were heavy atop me . . . and I knew they’d saved my life. Because of my younger brother and Jorge, the soldiers missed the fact I was still alive, still had a pulse. I live because of them.

And yet here I sit in a bar drinking away my life because what use is it to be alive when I’m alone, without God, without family, without friends, without you? I would do anything, fight anyone, if only you were here. But you’re gone and I’ve forsaken God for his cruelty.

Xavier

Chapter 13

FORTY-EIGHT HOURS AFTER Aden first told Lucas of the possible threat to Naya, DarkRiver had upgraded all its security precautions regarding their young. The panther inside him in a much calmer mood now that he knew his cub and all the cubs under his watch were well protected, Lucas had far more patience for dealing with the shaky edifice that was Trinity.

“Aden’s getting ready to test intimate Trinity ‘summits’ that would act as introductions between various groups,” he told Vaughn.

The DarkRiver sentinel was sprawled in a chair on the other side of Lucas’s desk at the pack’s Chinatown HQ. With amber hair tied in a neat queue at his nape and eyes more cat than man, Lucas’s closest friend wasn’t involved in Trinity—politics wasn’t really Vaughn’s strong suit—but like all of Lucas’s sentinels, he was highly intelligent.

Scanning the memo after Lucas turned the whisper-thin computer screen toward him, Vaughn shook his head. “Tell him to nix the idea of planning each of these summits ahead of time. Set up a trustworthy team to throw things together with an hour or two of notice max.”

Lucas raised an eyebrow. “Hard to get people together that quickly.”

“So it takes longer to make the connections—but if there are no plans, then no one can hunt down the attendees as a group.”

It was the answer of a predator.

“You’re right.” Far better, he realized, to go slow than to rush and give the enemy exactly what it wanted.

“My work here is done.” Vaughn rose to his feet with feline grace, a smile in his eyes that had become less and less rare in the years since he’d found his F-Psy mate. Before that, Vaughn had been a loner even in the midst of a pack. A loyal friend, a trusted sentinel, but always holding himself a little separate.

Part of that was his jaguar nature, but part of it had been the echo of a soul-searing grief.

“Hello, Miss Naya,” the jaguar said now, reaching down to pick up the tiny cub who’d scampered into the room.

Lucas’s panther growled in welcome inside him.

In truth, his cub’s scamper was more “attempted scamper,” but