Allegiance of Honor (39 page)

Sascha gasped, one hand rising to her mouth as tears filled her eyes, the white pinpricks disappearing to leave her eyes pure obsidian . . . but no, there were midnight-blue depths in Sascha’s eyes now, as if the color that lived in an E’s head was changing the very nature of her gaze.

“Mother,” she whispered, the single word holding so much emotion that Nikita wondered how her daughter could bear it.

Then she remembered that Sascha was born to bear emotion.

Distressed by her mother’s emotional state, Nadiya whimpered and, abandoning her game, began to crawl toward Sascha. Nikita released her grandchild’s small, warm weight, watched as Sascha picked her up, nuzzled her, saying, “It’s okay, Naya. Mama’s okay.”

Kisses followed, more touches and soft words, while Nadiya patted her mother’s face as if to ensure there were no further signs of tears.

When Sascha put the child on the bed again, she crawled immediately back to Nikita. “Gram!”

“Yes, I’m your grandmother.” Nikita allowed herself to take one small fist in her own hand, feel the vital life of this child who was of her blood.

“Nadiya will be at risk for years to come,” she told her daughter. “It doesn’t matter how many mixed-race children are born, whether they’re Psy and human or Psy and changeling. She’s the
first
. A symbol for those who want a new world order—and a target for those who’d rather go back to the old.”

“I know.” The resolute strength in Sascha’s tone reminded Nikita that her softhearted child had annihilated an entire mercenary team. “We’ll make sure she’s protected but we won’t cage her. She has to have the freedom to live her own life.” She lifted her gaze from Nadiya to Nikita. “A parent can only do so much.”

Nikita saw forgiveness in those eyes of midnight, saw understanding, saw an emotion she knew was love. Breaking the connection because she had to stay strong, had to remain the ice-cold bitch no one dared cross, she allowed Nadiya to “bite” at her knuckles. The child wasn’t actually biting down, was more working her milk teeth gently over the bone, as if Nikita were a teething toy.

“I am . . . glad to meet my grandchild.”

It was the closest she could come to betraying the emotions that lived so deep inside her that nothing might ever reach them again. It was the closest she could come to telling her daughter that she would murder and torture and die for her. As she would for the child of her child. The world might think she’d rejected Sascha, but Nikita had always played a chess game a hundred moves ahead.

“I’m happy she got to meet you, too.” Sascha smiled. “We’ll do this again.”

Nikita inclined her head. “I’m surprised your mate let you in here alone.” She knew Lucas Hunter was just outside the door, could feel his wild psychic energy.

“He says you’d liquefy the brains of anyone who threatened either me or Naya.”

The DarkRiver alpha had always been a dangerous opponent. “Perceptive.” She watched Nadiya wander off to the other side of the bed, saw Sascha restrain her instinctive protective urge in order to allow her child freedom to explore.

Then the child was no longer a child but a scatter of light . . . and a small panther cub was jumping off the bed. Nadiya turned to give her mother and grandmother a proudly satisfied look once she was on the floor.

“CLEVER CHILD.” NIKITA
was impressed the toddler had figured out that to get to the ground, she’d be better 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 sacks.”

Giggling, Nadiya kissed her mother’s face, unrepentant joy in her expression.

Nikita took a mental snapshot of the moment, to be filed away in her most private memories. She’d never take an actual snapshot, because if it existed, there existed the chance that someone could find it, use it against her by harming Sascha and Nadiya.

The lack of an actual photograph didn’t matter. Nikita’s mental acuity was extremely high. She’d remember, just like she remembered that Sascha had made the same sounds as a child. Sascha had also smelled much the same as Nadiya did when Sascha held her out and Nikita took her into her arms. Perhaps all babies had that innocent scent.

A bright, curious mind glanced across hers. Nikita nudged the child back without causing harm or distress, accompanying the psychic action with a nonvocal suggestion that Nadiya protect her mind. “She needs to stop reaching indiscriminately for others using telepathy,” Nikita told Sascha. “She’s old enough.”

“I haven’t wanted to stifle her,” Sascha replied. “And she’s around friendly minds.”

“She’s Psy, Sascha. A powerful one.” Nikita repeated her nudge when her grandchild reached out again. “
No
, Nadiya.” A firm command that made the child go still, watchful.

“You must train her,” Nikita told her frowning daughter. “You’ve taught her to shield and you’ve got your own shield over hers, but I can still send telepathic thoughts to her through the link
she
initiated. I could tell her anything I wanted, send her nightmare images, teach her to fear you, anything.”

Sascha’s face lost color, her eyes stark. There was a knock on the door a second later. Glancing over her shoulder, Sascha didn’t speak, but Lucas Hunter didn’t knock again or seek to enter the room. As Nikita had always suspected, the changeling mate-bond functioned on a psychic level in some fashion.

“You’re right.” Sascha’s voice trembled. “I’ve been so focused on not crushing her or hurting her that I went too far in the opposite direction. It’s like Lucas teaching her not to use her claws in play.” Sascha snuggled her baby when Nadiya made her way back to her. “It’s not hurting her to teach her psychic discipline; it’s giving her the tools she needs to survive and thrive.”

“Exactly.”

There, in that moment, Nikita shared the first moment of pure and absolute understanding with her daughter.
Sascha, too,
she thought,
would do whatever was necessary to protect her child.

•   •   •

ONCE,
Lucas had thought he’d never voluntarily permit his mate and child to be alone in a room with Nikita Duncan, but here he was, holding up the wall outside Nikita’s bedroom suite. Even when he’d sensed Sascha’s sudden distress, he hadn’t barged in. They’d been mated long enough that he could distinguish acute distress from a lesser emotional shock, and this had felt more akin to the latter.

Sascha’s silent response through their mate-bond had eased his concern.

Lucas would never change his mind about Nikita Duncan, not after the things the woman had done as a Councilor, but as he’d told his empath, better a child who knew her powerful—and to a cat—intriguing grandmother, than that she be tempted to find out on her own.

That didn’t mean he wasn’t having to fight the urge to break down the door and get his mate and child out of there. A call from Mercy to do with the joint pack event distracted him for a few minutes, but even then, the majority of his attention remained hyperfocused on the door behind which had disappeared two pieces of his heart.

Sascha proved exactly how well she knew him when she exited. Immediately handing him Naya, she slipped her hand into his. His bristling protective instincts settled, his claws no longer in danger of breaking through his skin. They didn’t speak until after Vasic had returned them home.

Lucas thanked the teleporter, who simply nodded.

Even after they were alone as a family, Lucas and Sascha waited until Naya was down for her nap before they opened up this particular box.

Lucas put on some soft music, drew his mate into his arms. As they swayed to the lazy beat, she told him about the meeting with her mother. “She meant it.” Sascha’s voice was raw. “That she never saw me as flawed.”

Lucas knew others would never understand the import of Nikita’s words, of how much they meant to Sascha. The hurt inside her that her mother had inflicted was no longer a scar, but neither could such pain be easily forgotten. “You’ve never been flawed.” It still pissed him off each time she used that word in relation to herself.

“I know.” She ran her hand over his back as she lifted her face to smile up at him. “I wouldn’t dare argue with an alpha cat.”

He nipped at her lower lip. “Smart-ass.”

Eyes dancing, she kissed him all slow and sexy. Only when they were both breathless did she break the kiss to continue speaking. “Mother told me to start teaching Naya mental discipline.”

His hackles rose. “Why do you sound like you’re considering it?”

“Right now,” Sascha said, “Naya is curious about everyone and anything, and I would never attempt to suppress that. But she’s also dangerously
open
.
Not only have I not taught her to be careful who she connects with telepathically or to never connect to strange minds without my permission—”

“As we’ve taught her not to go with strangers.” Lucas’s bunched-up muscles began to relax.

Sascha nodded. “I was so intent on not suffocating her in any way, in giving her the psychic freedom I never had, that I went too far in the other direction.”

“I understand, kitten.” Lucas had to constantly fight his own overprotective urges. “If I could, I’d wrap you both in cotton wool.” As well as every single vulnerable member of his pack. “You help me deal with that. I’ll help you deal with this.”

Lines of strain fading from her expression, Sascha said, “Mother gave me a number of tips about how to teach Naya what she needs, but I thought I’d speak to Shaya as well.” A long pause, Sascha placing her head against his shoulder as they swayed to the music. “Nikita kept me safe, but it hurt. Ashaya is doing the same for Keenan without damaging him. He’s a psychically strong and disciplined child who’s lost none of his personality or joy.”

Lucas dropped a kiss on her hair. “There’s also the fact that she’s guiding and teaching him while he’s living in a changeling pack.” Nikita had never had to deal with a child who was surrounded by primal and unrestrained emotion on a daily basis, rather than by the icy discipline of Psy under Silence.

“Yes, you’re right. Several of Nikita’s techniques would collapse under non-Silent conditions.”

“You should talk to the Laurens, too.” Walker Lauren, in particular, had been dealing with children outside the PsyNet and outside Silence, for longer than anyone else Lucas knew. Judd’s brother had also been a teacher in the PsyNet.

Sascha nodded before leaning back to look at him once more, her arms hooked around his neck and her lips swollen from his kiss. “We have to write a whole new rule book, don’t we?”

Lucas’s panther rumbled awake deep in his chest. “That’s what rebels do.” And Sascha Duncan, cardinal empath, mate to an alpha, and mother to a Psy-Changeling child, was the rebel who’d blown the PsyNet wide open.